Research Articles: All posts tagged 'hyksos'

There has been a division among scholars as to whether the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt was 215 (or 210) years long, or 430 years long. Although, along with Genesis 15:13-21, Exodus 12:40 is our primary source, evidences other than the variants of the ancient translations of the Scriptures are needed in order to reach a decision with respect to whether the long chronology or the short one for the Israelite sojourn in Egypt is to be preferred.

We do not know how many years Joseph served as Egypt’s Vizier (Prime Minister). It is very interesting that he evidently held two key titles, Vizier and Chief Steward of the King. This is relatively unusual in Egyptian history...

The specific Egyptian titles granted to Joseph by Pharaoh have been discussed at great length by modern scholars. The key verse is Genesis 45:8, which mentions three titles held by Joseph. The Hebrew text of course does not give the Egyptian form of these three titles. Hence, years of scholarly debate have arisen over the exact Egyptian renditions of the Hebrew words or phrases...

In Genesis 41, Joseph meets the king of Egypt. As we saw in our last article, he had been prepared for this encounter by being cleaned up and shaved, in true Egyptian fashion. He was now ready to meet the most powerful and important man on earth...

It is generally accepted that the term Shasu means nomads or Bedouin people, referring primarily to the nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples of Syria-Palestine. There are two significant hieroglyphic references in New Kingdom period texts to an area called “the land of the Shasu of Yahweh.” Except for the Old Testament, these are the oldest references found in any ancient texts to the God Yahweh. The purpose of this paper is to study these two references and assess their possible importance in dating the Exodus account...

As all who are familiar with the Biblical account will remember, Joseph, while still in the household of Potiphar, was falsely accused of adultery with the wife of his master and thrown into prison. The normal punishment for adultery in ancient Egypt was death; the fact that Joseph did not suffer execution is interesting and perhaps indicates that Potiphar doubted the veracity of his wife, who had made the accusation. In any case, Joseph spent time in an Egyptian prison...

Joseph began life in Egypt as a slave (Gn 39:1). As we saw in Part I of this study, these events in the life of Joseph should be dated to the great Middle Kingdom period of Egyptian history (2000–1782 BC)...

No portion of the Old Testament has a richer Egyptian coloring than the story of Joseph. Egyptian names, titles, places, and customs all appear in Genesis 37–50. In the last one hundred years or so, historical and archaeological research has made the study of the Egyptian elements in the Joseph story more fruitful than ever before...

The main route between Canaan and Egypt was along the northern coast of Sinai. A number of Biblical figures no doubt traveled this road. Known to the Egyptians as “the Way of Horus,” and in the Bible as “the road through the Philistine country” (Ex 13:17), it ended in the eastern delta in the Goshen region. This is the part of Egypt where most Biblical characters lived and Biblical events took place...

When Jacob and his family migrated to Egypt, they were settled in “the land of Rameses.” Initially, they were property owners there. Soon, however, the Egyptians subjected the Israelites to bondage, using them as slave laborers to build the city of Rameses...

Attempts to correlate the findings of archaeology with the biblical record for the period under review have seemingly met with insurmountable ob­stacles. Much of the scholarly community today has despaired of making any valid connections and has dismissed biblical history prior to the king­dom period as nothing more than myth and legend...